


stuck on you

by RenderedReversed



Series: Food [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Chef Loki, Gen or Pre-Slash, Gourmet AU, Gourmet Hunter Thor, Toriko AU, who have no idea they're in love with each other, young princes of Asgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 00:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16460360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/pseuds/RenderedReversed
Summary: Loki's always been Thor's: Thor's little brother, Thor's little chef, Thor's to spoil and Thor's to protect.Anyone with eyes can see that.





	stuck on you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wistering](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wistering/gifts).



Thor’s hunt lasts two days.

It was not for lack of prey nor for an elusiveness of it. The grounds were plentiful and the tracks fresh. Indeed; he could’ve brought anything back, and had found several ingredients that might’ve held his interest any other day, had it not been the request that had driven him out of the palace in the first place.

Loki had asked—or rather, _stated_ , very precisely so—

“I need fish.”

And then he had crossed his arms and given Thor an almost bland, expectant look, as if it were _Thor’s_ fault he did not have his fish right this very moment, and as such, it was _Thor’s_ responsibility to rectify it. _And_ , as all matters involving Loki and ingredients were to be resolved, Thor, as if it were his duty, went to go fetch him his fish.

Loki had not said what fish. He had not specified the species, the size, the flavor, the habitat, the amount…so naturally, Thor fell back on the tried-and-true instincts of a Gourmet Hunter: catch the biggest, strongest beast around.

Of course, he had to find the damn thing first.

So Thor returns on the third day heaving a bounty several times his size over his shoulder. His mother helpfully directs him past the sprawling gardens with an amused smile. Clearly _she_ knows the matter has come about by way of Loki’s hand; her eldest being a responsible, properly doting brother is the mere enabler.

Mollified, Thor walks on, ignoring the cut of pleasant birdsong to frantic wingbeats at his approach. He only sets his cargo down at the mouth of the caverns, where the lower ceiling does not permit such a large package.

(Thor imagines Loki, too, would be displeased if he brought unclean ingredients into the baths.)

These particular baths are reserved for the royal family. The minerals in the water are said to promote longevity and healing, originating from a spring far beneath the earth. It is said the same source feeds into the grove of Idunn’s apple trees, and in the human world, some certain poets and bards have started to call it the ‘Fountain of Youth’—whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Loki makes use of them generously.

Within the caverns, the walls are made entirely out of marble; Asgard’s history carved into the rock by sculptors that had come even before the Allfather’s time. A mural of the World Tree covers the expanse of the ceiling, using the natural gradient of the marble as shadow and color both, and Thor remembers how he would stare up and trace the branches while his mother retold the tale of their creation to him as a child, her voice gentle as the waters in his ear.

Now, of course, times have changed; it is no longer the _decor_ he admires, for one.

Loki’s draped himself over the brim of the highest pool, his long hair wet with water droplets clinging to his eyelashes. As Thor enters the main chamber, he says not a word; just takes him in as any scenic sight in Asgard. 

Loki's always been Thor's: Thor's little brother, Thor's little chef, Thor's to spoil and Thor's to protect. The peek of his brother’s bare shoulder, the moue of his lips, the way he twines a stray strand of hair around his finger while staring unwaveringly at Thor; all of that is his. Thor suddenly longs to hear him speak. He thinks, that pout of his, it’s an invitation for sure, and swallows that thought down before a soul but himself can hear it.

Anyone with eyes can see that Loki is Thor's, but what the eyes don't see, those are the things better off a dream.

“Brother, you’ll prune if you stay in the baths too long,” Thor chides.

“Hmm,” is all Loki says. His little brother has the nerve to close his eyes and rest his head upon an arm, angling his face away. “I haven’t been here for _that_ long.”

“You’re already falling asleep,” Thor points out.

“Hush, Thor. I’m bathing.”

Thor gives him a flat look, which promptly gets ignored.

At the sound of rustling clothes, Loki pops an eye open. “…What are you doing.”

“Joining you so you don’t drown,” says Thor.

“You’re filthy!”

“Yes,” Thor agrees, moving to the terrace stairs as he continues stripping, “So you better get out before I get in.”

Loki glares. “Go use another bath!”

“But I want the one you’re using.”

And with that said, Thor tosses off the last of his bloodstained underclothes and slides in.

Loki shrieks in outrage and immediately retreats to the opposite side of the pool. There’s no actual contamination to be concerned about, however; the waters are fast-healing and and the native blood tetra doctor fish, invisible to the naked eye, are quick to clean away the dirty blood. There’s not a speck of red left after a few more moments’ worth of soaking.

Thor’s wounds aren’t serious, but they had accumulated over the course of two days without recovery, and the relief is welcome. He had only eaten the bare minimum, after all—saving his stomach for Loki’s cooking.

His brother wrinkles his nose at him from across the pool. “Can’t you be a little cleaner when you fight?”

Thor snorts and beckons him closer. When Loki crosses his arms, Thor says, “Help me wash my hair, Brother.”

Only then does Loki say, sounding much put upon, “Oh, if I _must_.”

Loki’s hands are firm as they card through Thor’s hair. Occasionally, he’ll scrape against Thor’s scalp with just the right pressure to feel it, and Thor will sigh and lean back against him. There’s no one in the world, he thinks, mind hazy with affection, no one in the world who can compare to his brother.

Loki arranges them so Thor can lie comfortably between his legs and he himself can rest back upon the ledge. He cups his hand and shields Thor’s eyes from the water as he rinses away the soap, brushes his hair back and pulls out the tangles and matted knots obtained during Thor’s journey through the swamplands. Loki is diligent and silent and says more than he could ever say in that silence.

Thor thinks, it’s not so bad being a doting elder brother if it means Loki will feel free to show his affection in return.

The request was to wash his hair, but clearly, Loki figures Thor is too incompetent for the rest, too; he lathers his hands with soap again and Thor can feel him scrub at his arms, his chest, the nooks and crannies where dirt and sweat and blood get stuck in best. They massage at knots and places of tension Thor hadn’t known were there to begin with.

Sometimes Loki’s hands wander to a wound or a scar not yet fully healed and trace the fault in the flesh or press against it calculatively—Thor wonders what he’s thinking then, with a countable list of ways his elder brother is yet fallible still.

“Your gourmet cells are close to leveling up again,” Loki says, voice only for Thor in the wide, hollow cavern. “I’ll make you something nutritious—replenish all this blood you lost, repair all these muscles you strained.”

“Sounds nice,” Thor murmurs. His eyes fall closed. “Will it be tasty?”

Loki snorts softly. “When hasn’t it been?”

* * *

All of Loki’s kind, lovely tenderness is lost the minute they step out of the cavern.

“ _You brought me_ ,” he begins, punctuating every word, “a _buffalofish?_ ”

“You asked for a fish!” Thor says, getting defensive. He motions and gestures to his quarry, half-revealed out of the sack he’d used to carry it back in. “So, I brought one. Biggest I could find!”

“Oh, you _useless, foolish, brain-dead_ lout! Size isn’t everything! And buffalofish isn’t even fish!”

“It has fish in its name! I found it in a lake!”

Loki gives him a flat, condescending stare. “It’s _meat_. Buffalofish are amphibious; they return to the water in the spring to mate and spend the rest of the time grazing on land.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?”

“You— _ugh_!” Loki groans. “Fantastic! What am I supposed to use for my seafood birdsnest _now_?”

“You could still use it?”

“No way; the meat’s too gamey and the heavy flavor won’t pair well with the butter oyster…” Loki starts to pace. Thor takes a minor step back. He knows better than to interfere with his brother when he gets into one of his chef moods. “If I’m going to use any part of it, it’ll have to be the scales—but then I’ll need something like guava crab or lemon sweetfish...”

“You mean _that_?”

Loki pivots a hundred-eighty degrees. Thor points at the sack, where a fish the size of a guppy beside the buffalofish is sticking its head out.

Thor had only thrown those in at a whim; the light, pleasant scent of the fish had been like a breath of fresh air after trekking through miles of moist, humid wetlands.

Similarly, his brother looks like he’d just seen salvation.

“Lemon sweetfish! You did find it!”

That implies Loki requested it in the first place. Thor smiles wryly. “Well, yes; I suppose I did.”

“Seems you’re not completely useless after all,” says Loki, a merry sort of grin on his face.

Then, without wasting another second, he snaps his fingers and a large leaf from one of the garden’s banana star trees detaches, slides beneath the pile of ingredients, and levitates the entire mass like a floating cart.

“Lunch will be ready in an hour or so. I’ll put snacks in the parlor—but don’t spoil your appetite, got it?”

“Yes, yes,” Thor says, waving him off. “As if I could.”

Loki sniffs delicately and turns away. “You act as if raising the greatest warrior Asgard’s ever seen is an _easy_ thing.”

* * *

True to his word, Loki serves Thor a full course meal an hour later. The seafood birdsnest he’d so complained about is one of the tastiest things he’s ever eaten—though that’s rewritten often enough when one has a genius chef for a little brother like Thor.

Fragrant and crispy rose taro root; sweet giga-shrimp from Basin Falls; the creaminess from the butter oyster and the bite of the seared mushroom scallops… Thor takes a bite of the buffalofish scale chips next and hears a satisfying crunch. He cleanses his palate on sugar snow peas and cucumber celery, all covered in a thick, citrusy sauce, and finds it harmonizes well with the thin fillets of lemon sweetfish within the nest.

Loki rests his chin on the palm of his hand and says nothing, watching Thor demolish dish after dish. More than five disappear in the span it takes for five more to be brought out—the entrance to the kitchens is a near revolving door of Loki’s clones. It might’ve been impressive had the sight not been so common.

Thor doesn’t say anything, just lets Loki watch him. His brother can see more than the finest palace doctors can fathom. Even now, his eyes trace the evolution of gourmet cells invisible to the five senses—cells he could mold or destroy to his whim if he wished it, so vague and indeterminable the bounds to his brother’s power.

But what Loki sees, he uses to help rather than hinder. Thor’s sure every ingredient on today’s meal was calculated to the most minute degree.

That’s just how his little brother is, after all.

“Having a midday banquet? Excellent; I’m famished!”

Thor turns. Fandral and Lady Sif are trekking up the hill to the garden patio—the location Loki had chosen for lunch—waving in greeting. Thor waves back.

Just as Fandral makes to take a seat at the table, however, he leaps back several paces. A fine, straight fracture appears on the ground, the same width and span as a sword cut.

Loki twirls his knife. “Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to eat food not made for you?”

Fandral raises his hands in surrender. “So touchy,” he says. “Come, Thor, tell your brother to let us eat.”

Thor looks at Fandral, looks at Loki, and back to Fandral again. Fandral winks.

“You heard him,” says Thor, and takes another bite. “Not for you.”

“What?! Oh, come on!”

“If you want your own food, hunt it yourself,” says Thor.

“Even if I did, not all of us have little brothers to prepare it for us!”

“Rather than a brother, you might want to try asking your chef one of these days,” says Loki. “Oh wait, I forgot: your last combo left you.”

Sif shifts forward but Thor angles his body to block her.

Fandral, the target of the insult, is actually the least offended. He motions in an exaggerated manner and says, “It’s my bewitching charm and dashing wit, you see; difficult to keep a partner when all the other chefs are falling one after the other for me. Competition gets nasty.”

“I’m sure,” Loki deadpans.

“Besides, if I _did_ have a combo, then I wouldn’t have a, oh, say, handful of mountain-eater pelican eggs available to the next chef able to prepare them…shame, really…”

“Mountain-eater pelican eggs?”

Fandral grins. “Waiting down there with Volstagg and Hogun.”

“A handful?” Loki demands. “Five?”

“Exactly five,” Fandral says. He leans close—though careful to avoid the table—and mock-whispers, “Between you and me, Sif is just _dying_ for an egg custard right now. Don’t suppose you know where we could get one, would you?”

Loki considers him for a moment. Then, he lowers the knife. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll prepare your ingredients for you. But you’re not eating any of _this_.”

“Excellent,” Fandral says. “I’ll go bring them up!”

Loki disappears into the kitchen and Fandral downhill. Meanwhile, Sif watches on beside him with pursed lips.

Thor waits.

“Perhaps it’s not my place,” she says, “but as your friend, I think it my responsibility to at least mention it. Aren’t you spoiling him a little too much?”

Thor places down his silverware. “Loki, you mean?”

“Loki,” Sif agrees. “So often he does what he likes. It’s unruly for a chef—people talk, Thor.”

“I think he’s fine the way he is,” Thor says. “He’s _my_ combo; what other hunters think don’t matter.”

Sif looks away.

Thor sighs and gentles his voice. “I respect your opinion, my friend,” he tells her, “but Loki is far more aware than you can imagine. He is a prince of Asgard and comports himself worthy of the title.”

Sif’s doubt is clear on her face. “A prince, perhaps, but a chef?”

“It’s Loki. If he wishes to decide for whom and what he cooks for, he has the skill to make that decision,” Thor says. “And if he truly needed to be…disciplined,” he adds, the word ugly on his tongue, “then my father would certainly say something.”

The mention of the Allfather finally smoothes the crease in her brow.

“I suppose you’re right,” Sif murmurs. “Forget I said anything, then.”

“No, we’re friends; I appreciate your concern.”

At the same time as the Warriors Three arrive up the hill with their precious cargo, Loki comes out of the kitchen with Thor’s dessert.

Fandral startles. “What! Is that billion bird egg pudding?!”

“You can’t have any,” Loki says immediately. He even shields it with his hand, as if Fandral could consume it by direct eye contact.

“Oh, come on—Thor! Thor, tell Loki to spare at least a _little bit_? They say the yolk of the egg makes the skin sparkle like diamonds! I’ll definitely level up if I eat it—come on, just a spoonful?”

“If you want it, hunt it yourself,” Thor says cheerfully.

“I am _90-percent sure_ you did _not_ capture that ingredient yourself—”

“Well, we’re a combo,” says Loki. He places the overfilling glass on the table, the pudding reflecting a golden sheen under the rays of the sun.

“What’s mine is his.”

**Author's Note:**

> ok KH_Nobody gave me a prompt about Thor getting possessive when some asshole starts hounding after his combo partner Loki, and I am so _totally absolutely_ about that life, like you have no idea, definitely gonna write it, but first I had to establish how far their partnership went back for myself and...
> 
> I'LL GET TO THE PROMPT I SWEAR IT WAS A GOOD ONE.
> 
> Meanwhile, for wisterings, who I think of every time I see this AU. 
> 
> (Given, I also think about what a Shokugeki no Soma AU would look like, but that.......hasn't fully developed yet ok)


End file.
